I learned after a fashion that Real Brony was less a typical brony, and more a typical horrible person.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
... snip ...

"[SHOP OWNER] I HAVE A RULES QUERY." I wave to him from behind the mountain of Real Brony.
The shop owner (a very good friend) shambles over, and he takes one look at me, one look at the guy, and gives him a weekend ban for "this gak again."
I learned after a fashion that Real Brony was less a typical brony, and more a typical horrible person.

THE WRATH OF CAT P*** MAN
BY PAUL T. RIDDELL

- - -

It's a distasteful subject, not fit for family reading, but it's time. It's time to relate the origins of everyone's least favorite comic shop fixture, Cat Pee Man.

Back about three-quarters of a decade ago, I was a regular at a local comic shop in Dallas, and was yakking with the staff about the new issue of feth Science Fiction (yes, that was a real magazine, and I bawled like a baby went it went under) when I met my first Cat Pee Man. Ever comic shop in every city has at least one, all seemingly grown off this one like cuttings off jade plants. About six foot four he was, weighing in at least 200 kilos if an ounce, and the perfect cliche of the comics aficionado. The lank, greasy hair that wasn't long enough to tie back but also wasn't so short that it took care of itself without combing. The heavily abused "Marvel" T-shirt, with holes that suggested that cotton polyblend was the only fiber he got in his diet, since most of the rest was covered in a thick layer of Cheetos crumbs. Facial pores that suggested that gnomes sneaked into his bedroom in his parents' house and broke off the tips of No. 2 pencils in them. Beady little eyes behind Buddy Holly birth control glasses. If one's dental apparatus was a city, his mouth obviously took a direct hit with an H-bomb, and the mixture of nose hairs and crusted boogers protruding an inch past his nostrils and down his moustache guaranteed that he breathed through his mouth, producing a charitable impersonation of "The Creature From the Black Latrine". The last of the Olmec had taken to living in cliff dwellings in the shelter between his double chin and his gut, reasonably assured that nothing would disturb their mushroom and cave cricket farms.

However, Cat Pee Man's name was pure olfactory onomatopoeia. The first time I encountered him, he was walking up to the store door when one of the staff said "Oh God, it's Cat P*** Man." I was about ready to ask why he said that when Cat Pee Man stepped inside. Now, Texas heat has a tendency to make everyone exposed to it somewhat less than fresh, but this was the end of December, and his odor literally brought tears to my eyes. This wasn't a minor case of body odor: he literally smelled like a mile-wide overloaded litter box, left out in the Australian outback to cook in the sun, with enough power to kill a silk ficus. This stench wasn't just an affront to God, Satan, and Elvis: this was positively Lovecraftian in scope. I suddenly attained insane insights into the magazine distribution business, and I think a lack of available oxygen had something to do with it. Other customers would simply run the moment they saw him waddling toward the door, and he could clear the entire shop within seconds if the store's air conditioner wasn't on at full blast.

If this wasn't nauseating enough, his behavior was even more horrifying. Since this store didn't carry "adult" comics, he didn't disappear into the back area to spank off (to steal from the "Republicans Attack!" trading card set from Kitchen Sink, I doubt if he nor anyone else had seen his genitalia since 1984), so he felt compelled to follow people around. Someone would be reading the back copy on an issue of The Comics Journal when he'd come trucking over, not saying anything, and just kinda stare. Every time the customer would move away because Cat Pee Man was melting their Mylar baggies, he'd just follow along, not saying a word, and reposition himself like a corpulent vulture over a dying prospector. And Arioch help us all if the customer was female: Cat Pee Man would sidle over closer, trying to stun her with his natural perfume, and apparently he once tried to feel up one woman who wasn't able to get away fast enough.

The last time I ever saw Cat Pee Man, he was at a science fiction convention in Austin, Texas a few years back, hogging space in front of a dealer's table, doing the same thing. This time, he was dressed semi-formal, in a homemade Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform with a thick layer of human grease clogging the uniform's fabric in a band starting at his armpits and ending at the tops of his hips. He apparently couldn't afford or find a prop communicator pin, so he had one appliqued with Elmer's Glue-All and glitter, and the grease was making the symbol Peel free. For some reason, this made his assaults even more terrifying.

Oh, and did I mention that this guy almost never bought anything during his regular visits? Or if he did, he nitpicked everything in an effort to scam as much free stuff as possible?

Okay, so you think it's cruel to make fun of the socially challenged. We've all been there at one point or another in our lives (I cant' read one of Evan Dorkin's Eltingville strips without getting flashbacks of 1985, and when I remember how much I used to be like Bill from the Eltingville Club, I want to borrow a time machine just so I can kick my former self's ass into the next time zone), but this is different. This isn't making fun of someone different from us. This is explaining why so many people stay away from comic shops.

Let's put it another way. If Cat Pee Man were to act like this on the street toward random passersby, he'd probably get arrested or at least given a stern warning by a local cop. If Cat Pee Man were to do this at a restaurant, he'd be thrown out for bothering the customers. If Cat Pee Man were to do this at a nightclub, about eight big burly guys would take him out back and beat the gak out of him. If Cat Pee Man were even to smell like this in the Army, he'd get a good scrubdown with lye soap and wire brushes. (I had Cat Pee Man's brother in my Basic Training platoon in the Army, and we finally had to give him a blanket party a la Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket to convince him that bathing and changing clothes were good things, because every other method simply didn't work.) In a comic shop, though, this isn't only tolerated, its example just acts as encouragement for others. Every time I mention Cat Pee Man to a comic shop owner, no matter where in the country the comic shop is located, s/he laughs and says "Oh yeah: he's in here all of the time." It's not the same guy (sometimes Cat Pee Man is skinny, and sometimes he actually combs his hair), but this new Cat Pee Man is a glob off the original.

I'm willing to concede that Cat Pee Man buys something every once in a while, and that we can't afford to alienate customers in this depressed market. However, even if his Mommy's allowance gave him the opportunity to buy $200 or more in comics and other goodies a week, Cat Pee Man drives off easily twice that many paying customers, who would come back to a comic shop again and again if they weren't subjected to nasal rape every time they walked inside. This also holds true for the "Tragic: This Gathering" players shrieking at the tops of their lungs in the back (that is, except in the comic shops where the owners realized that they lost less money in sales to card game players by closing the gaming areas than they lost from items that "liberated" themselves when the gamers left for the day), or the guy who pesters customers into buying loose action figures out front because the store owner didn't want a box of dog-chewed Spawn figures. And let's not forget the fanatics who threaten violence upon anyone who dares scoff at the idea of an Action Girl/Witchblade crossover event. Comic store owners just don't seem to realize the lesson that the shantytowns out in front of movie theaters for Star Wars: Episode One taught movie theater managers: the last thing most patrons wanted was to be harangued by some dork in a Jedi costume who had been living in it for the last four months, and the fear of even getting close to the "Episode One" line meant that customers didn't come to see other films, either.

And for those store owners and patrons who don't think that Cat Pee Man and his brothers are a problem, look at it this way. Imagine going into a pet shop in a world where every pet shop had a big, smelly incontinent St. Bernard in the back. The dog doesn't belong to the store: it's just some stray that comes in every day, eats straight out of the bulk dog food bins, drools all over the copies of Reptiles Monthly and Tropical Fish Hobbyist up front, molests the hamsters and dry-humps the legs of every customer that comes in, and doesn't contribute a thing to the operation of the store. If anything, it gets in the way of normal operation, and pet supply proprietors find that their business is directly affected by customer perceptions of the ordeal of trying to get around the St. Bernard gak piled around the front entrance. This world doesn't exist, although I've seen some pet shops that have come close. One of two things happen to pet shops like this: they go out of business, or the owner does an Old Yeller to the mangy beast and burns its carcass in a big bonfire out front.

The latter is what comic shop owners and managers need to do to their resident Cat Pee Man: throw the bums out. Don't joke about the stench or put on gas masks while Cat Pee Man is in the store, because he's spent years ignoring the comments of every other human about his appearance. Simply say "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave until you take a bath and leave the customers alone," and back it up. In the best scenario, he realizes that cleaning himself from time to time is at least as important as wearing pants, and comes back after realizing that his body isn't made from pure sodium and that soap and water don't necessarily burst into flame on contact. Otherwise, he'll throw a temper tantrum and stomp off to another comic shop; the other comic shop gets his pittance, and his old shop gets a whole passel of customers who apologize "I would have come in sooner, but that guy in here was melting the windows..." Either way, the problem is solved, and his old shop may even get a whole new contingent of customers who say "I used to go to that shop across town, but this guy who smells like he sleeps in a cat box came in and took over."

I'm not advocating setting up a dress code for comic shops, although I have to say that a dress code for comic shop managers and customers might not be a bad idea. (C'mon, guys: you don't need suits from Barneys, but have you ever wondered what people think when they see you behind the counter in sandals, ratty jeans, and a Lady Death T-shirt?) What I am advocating is considering the benefits of getting the shop Cat Pee Man to bathe or getting him to leave. And since none of the other customers are going to say anything, he's there until the store staff gets rid of him, and he'll cost you. Oh boy howdy, he'll cost you.

 Compel wrote:
One of my favourite was back in 5th edition a GW staffer trying to talk someone into buying a pyrovore.

THE WRATH OF CAT P*** MAN
BY PAUL T. RIDDELL

-

Spoiler:

- -

It's a distasteful subject, not fit for family reading, but it's time. It's time to relate the origins of everyone's least favorite comic shop fixture, Cat Pee Man.

Back about three-quarters of a decade ago, I was a regular at a local comic shop in Dallas, and was yakking with the staff about the new issue of feth Science Fiction (yes, that was a real magazine, and I bawled like a baby went it went under) when I met my first Cat Pee Man. Ever comic shop in every city has at least one, all seemingly grown off this one like cuttings off jade plants. About six foot four he was, weighing in at least 200 kilos if an ounce, and the perfect cliche of the comics aficionado. The lank, greasy hair that wasn't long enough to tie back but also wasn't so short that it took care of itself without combing. The heavily abused "Marvel" T-shirt, with holes that suggested that cotton polyblend was the only fiber he got in his diet, since most of the rest was covered in a thick layer of Cheetos crumbs. Facial pores that suggested that gnomes sneaked into his bedroom in his parents' house and broke off the tips of No. 2 pencils in them. Beady little eyes behind Buddy Holly birth control glasses. If one's dental apparatus was a city, his mouth obviously took a direct hit with an H-bomb, and the mixture of nose hairs and crusted boogers protruding an inch past his nostrils and down his moustache guaranteed that he breathed through his mouth, producing a charitable impersonation of "The Creature From the Black Latrine". The last of the Olmec had taken to living in cliff dwellings in the shelter between his double chin and his gut, reasonably assured that nothing would disturb their mushroom and cave cricket farms.

However, Cat Pee Man's name was pure olfactory onomatopoeia. The first time I encountered him, he was walking up to the store door when one of the staff said "Oh God, it's Cat P*** Man." I was about ready to ask why he said that when Cat Pee Man stepped inside. Now, Texas heat has a tendency to make everyone exposed to it somewhat less than fresh, but this was the end of December, and his odor literally brought tears to my eyes. This wasn't a minor case of body odor: he literally smelled like a mile-wide overloaded litter box, left out in the Australian outback to cook in the sun, with enough power to kill a silk ficus. This stench wasn't just an affront to God, Satan, and Elvis: this was positively Lovecraftian in scope. I suddenly attained insane insights into the magazine distribution business, and I think a lack of available oxygen had something to do with it. Other customers would simply run the moment they saw him waddling toward the door, and he could clear the entire shop within seconds if the store's air conditioner wasn't on at full blast.

If this wasn't nauseating enough, his behavior was even more horrifying. Since this store didn't carry "adult" comics, he didn't disappear into the back area to spank off (to steal from the "Republicans Attack!" trading card set from Kitchen Sink, I doubt if he nor anyone else had seen his genitalia since 1984), so he felt compelled to follow people around. Someone would be reading the back copy on an issue of The Comics Journal when he'd come trucking over, not saying anything, and just kinda stare. Every time the customer would move away because Cat Pee Man was melting their Mylar baggies, he'd just follow along, not saying a word, and reposition himself like a corpulent vulture over a dying prospector. And Arioch help us all if the customer was female: Cat Pee Man would sidle over closer, trying to stun her with his natural perfume, and apparently he once tried to feel up one woman who wasn't able to get away fast enough.

The last time I ever saw Cat Pee Man, he was at a science fiction convention in Austin, Texas a few years back, hogging space in front of a dealer's table, doing the same thing. This time, he was dressed semi-formal, in a homemade Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform with a thick layer of human grease clogging the uniform's fabric in a band starting at his armpits and ending at the tops of his hips. He apparently couldn't afford or find a prop communicator pin, so he had one appliqued with Elmer's Glue-All and glitter, and the grease was making the symbol Peel free. For some reason, this made his assaults even more terrifying.

Oh, and did I mention that this guy almost never bought anything during his regular visits? Or if he did, he nitpicked everything in an effort to scam as much free stuff as possible?

Okay, so you think it's cruel to make fun of the socially challenged. We've all been there at one point or another in our lives (I cant' read one of Evan Dorkin's Eltingville strips without getting flashbacks of 1985, and when I remember how much I used to be like Bill from the Eltingville Club, I want to borrow a time machine just so I can kick my former self's ass into the next time zone), but this is different. This isn't making fun of someone different from us. This is explaining why so many people stay away from comic shops.

Let's put it another way. If Cat Pee Man were to act like this on the street toward random passersby, he'd probably get arrested or at least given a stern warning by a local cop. If Cat Pee Man were to do this at a restaurant, he'd be thrown out for bothering the customers. If Cat Pee Man were to do this at a nightclub, about eight big burly guys would take him out back and beat the gak out of him. If Cat Pee Man were even to smell like this in the Army, he'd get a good scrubdown with lye soap and wire brushes. (I had Cat Pee Man's brother in my Basic Training platoon in the Army, and we finally had to give him a blanket party a la Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket to convince him that bathing and changing clothes were good things, because every other method simply didn't work.) In a comic shop, though, this isn't only tolerated, its example just acts as encouragement for others. Every time I mention Cat Pee Man to a comic shop owner, no matter where in the country the comic shop is located, s/he laughs and says "Oh yeah: he's in here all of the time." It's not the same guy (sometimes Cat Pee Man is skinny, and sometimes he actually combs his hair), but this new Cat Pee Man is a glob off the original.

I'm willing to concede that Cat Pee Man buys something every once in a while, and that we can't afford to alienate customers in this depressed market. However, even if his Mommy's allowance gave him the opportunity to buy $200 or more in comics and other goodies a week, Cat Pee Man drives off easily twice that many paying customers, who would come back to a comic shop again and again if they weren't subjected to nasal rape every time they walked inside. This also holds true for the "Tragic: This Gathering" players shrieking at the tops of their lungs in the back (that is, except in the comic shops where the owners realized that they lost less money in sales to card game players by closing the gaming areas than they lost from items that "liberated" themselves when the gamers left for the day), or the guy who pesters customers into buying loose action figures out front because the store owner didn't want a box of dog-chewed Spawn figures. And let's not forget the fanatics who threaten violence upon anyone who dares scoff at the idea of an Action Girl/Witchblade crossover event. Comic store owners just don't seem to realize the lesson that the shantytowns out in front of movie theaters for Star Wars: Episode One taught movie theater managers: the last thing most patrons wanted was to be harangued by some dork in a Jedi costume who had been living in it for the last four months, and the fear of even getting close to the "Episode One" line meant that customers didn't come to see other films, either.

And for those store owners and patrons who don't think that Cat Pee Man and his brothers are a problem, look at it this way. Imagine going into a pet shop in a world where every pet shop had a big, smelly incontinent St. Bernard in the back. The dog doesn't belong to the store: it's just some stray that comes in every day, eats straight out of the bulk dog food bins, drools all over the copies of Reptiles Monthly and Tropical Fish Hobbyist up front, molests the hamsters and dry-humps the legs of every customer that comes in, and doesn't contribute a thing to the operation of the store. If anything, it gets in the way of normal operation, and pet supply proprietors find that their business is directly affected by customer perceptions of the ordeal of trying to get around the St. Bernard gak piled around the front entrance. This world doesn't exist, although I've seen some pet shops that have come close. One of two things happen to pet shops like this: they go out of business, or the owner does an Old Yeller to the mangy beast and burns its carcass in a big bonfire out front.

The latter is what comic shop owners and managers need to do to their resident Cat Pee Man: throw the bums out. Don't joke about the stench or put on gas masks while Cat Pee Man is in the store, because he's spent years ignoring the comments of every other human about his appearance. Simply say "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave until you take a bath and leave the customers alone," and back it up. In the best scenario, he realizes that cleaning himself from time to time is at least as important as wearing pants, and comes back after realizing that his body isn't made from pure sodium and that soap and water don't necessarily burst into flame on contact. Otherwise, he'll throw a temper tantrum and stomp off to another comic shop; the other comic shop gets his pittance, and his old shop gets a whole passel of customers who apologize "I would have come in sooner, but that guy in here was melting the windows..." Either way, the problem is solved, and his old shop may even get a whole new contingent of customers who say "I used to go to that shop across town, but this guy who smells like he sleeps in a cat box came in and took over."

I'm not advocating setting up a dress code for comic shops, although I have to say that a dress code for comic shop managers and customers might not be a bad idea. (C'mon, guys: you don't need suits from Barneys, but have you ever wondered what people think when they see you behind the counter in sandals, ratty jeans, and a Lady Death T-shirt?) What I am advocating is considering the benefits of getting the shop Cat Pee Man to bathe or getting him to leave. And since none of the other customers are going to say anything, he's there until the store staff gets rid of him, and he'll cost you. Oh boy howdy, he'll cost you.

 Compel wrote:
One of my favourite was back in 5th edition a GW staffer trying to talk someone into buying a pyrovore.

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
I'm pretty sure every FLGS/Comic store that is, was, and every will be has a least one Cat Pee Man.

My GW had 3.5*

When they were all in the store at once... my God, the only comparable experience is like being at Verdun in 1916 and not having a mask on when the mustard gas canister lands right next to you.

* The .5 is because one them apparently got a girlfriend and the next time we saw him a few months later he was odorless, groomed, clean shaven, and had even lost a couple pounds.

 Compel wrote:
One of my favourite was back in 5th edition a GW staffer trying to talk someone into buying a pyrovore.

Pretty sure this is a Federal Crime in the US.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I was about to post another story and realised its yet another about people inappropriately touching me, and I'm starting to wonder why I stay in this hobby.

There's a chemical that pregnant women release into their system to block out the pain of childbirth after the fact. I'm wondering if there's a gamer equivalent. It'd explain so much.

 Chute82 wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I was about to post another story and realised its yet another about people inappropriately touching me, and I'm starting to wonder why I stay in this hobby.

There's a chemical that pregnant women release into their system to block out the pain of childbirth after the fact. I'm wondering if there's a gamer equivalent. It'd explain so much.

Pepper Mace works pretty well

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
It's not legal here.
I mean neither is touching other people without consent, but the mace is a clearer issue.

 zedmeister wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
It's not legal here.
I mean neither is touching other people without consent, but the mace is a clearer issue.

I think this thread should be renamed to "Buttery finds yet another handsy scumbag". Sounds like you attract them

Buttery's stories are the most entertaining in this thread.

I try and keep them to the lighter weirdness

 Buttery Commissar wrote:


Another really quiet, demure young lad was unable to continue playing because he went to prison suddenly on one of those charges that makes something technically a crime, but everyone likely does it at some point. He ended up being reported out of spite.
He then couldn't come back, despite being very good company, because we had minors come in with their family on occasion.

 Vermis wrote:
Those were the lighter ones?!

 dameanone wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:


Another really quiet, demure young lad was unable to continue playing because he went to prison suddenly on one of those charges that makes something technically a crime, but everyone likely does it at some point. He ended up being reported out of spite.
He then couldn't come back, despite being very good company, because we had minors come in with their family on occasion.

Uh yea I think I need an elaboration on that? Am I the only one thinking it was some pedo related thing?

 dameanone wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:


Another really quiet, demure young lad was unable to continue playing because he went to prison suddenly on one of those charges that makes something technically a crime, but everyone likely does it at some point. He ended up being reported out of spite.
He then couldn't come back, despite being very good company, because we had minors come in with their family on occasion.

Uh yea I think I need an elaboration on that? Am I the only one thinking it was some pedo related thing?

 Tainted wrote:
One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Tainted wrote:
One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.

Where is the horror?

Sounds like a run of the mill GW store scenario.

Customer: "What's this gak? Toy soldier mans?"
GW Manager: "They are tabletop models that you build, paint and play games with. Would you like to try a game?"
Customer: "Feth that!"
GW Manager: "There's the door."

Knowing a guy who worked at a mall-based GW shop a few years ago, that kinda stuff happened on the regular.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Tainted wrote:
One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.

Where is the horror?

Sounds like a run of the mill GW store scenario.

Customer: "What's this gak? Toy soldier mans?"
GW Manager: "They are tabletop models that you build, paint and play games with. Would you like to try a game?"
Customer: "Feth that!"
GW Manager: "There's the door."

Knowing a guy who worked at a mall-based GW shop a few years ago, that kinda stuff happened on the regular.

War Kitten wrote:You know, I used to think I was the weird one at my FLGS. Then I read stories like the ones in this thread and I realize that I could be far, far worse.

timetowaste85 wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Tainted wrote:
One night my local GW was open late because of a big apocalypse game being played in the store. A lady who had evidently had a few too many decided it would be a good idea to pop in, although I doubt she actually had any idea what shop she was walking into. I won't repeat what she said. The store manager told her to leave, but not before trying to get her to buy something.

Where is the horror?

Sounds like a run of the mill GW store scenario.

Customer: "What's this gak? Toy soldier mans?"
GW Manager: "They are tabletop models that you build, paint and play games with. Would you like to try a game?"
Customer: "Feth that!"
GW Manager: "There's the door."

Knowing a guy who worked at a mall-based GW shop a few years ago, that kinda stuff happened on the regular.

Probably more along the lines of:
"I lost my panties!"
"Lady, please leave"
"Anybody want to start a gangbang?"
"Ma'am, I asked you to leave. Can I interest you in a Commissar Creed model first? He can do tactical insertions"

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Yeah, bad hygene is kind of easy pickings and does really feel like mocking.

Also, wow. I just can't compete with some of these, when all I've got is boilerplate "cliquish nerds are elitist" or "creepily flaunting having a girlfriend."